Marine Conservation Society Beach Clean: Cambois 27th August 2017

What a beautiful day for a beach clean!

Our volunteers worked up a sweat in the sun that was beaming down on Cambois beach last weekend. This time, we tackled the far end of Cambois beach next to Charlton's pub. That means that so far this year, we've pretty much covered the entire stretch of coastline from North Blyth to the River Wansbeck estuary picking up a cracking 343kg of rubbish on the way! That's the same weight as a Colossal Squid!

A Nice Clean Beach?

Once again, on first inspection the beach seemed relatively clean. After our volunteers scavenged amongst the rocks at the high tide line, 45kg of rubbish proved that it was not! We found the usual culprits, including plastic bottles and cans and over 3kg of dog poo....

We have a number of dedicated volunteers join our beach cleans. They walk the beach every single day, either to take in the scenery or give their four-legged friends some exercise. Every day they pick up litter. It's fantastic to hear they have noticed a reduction in the amount of litter recently. We hope that this is the beginning of a change in attitude from beach goers.

Perhaps it's from recent sustained media coverage of the ever-present problem of plastic pollution. Like Sky Ocean Rescue's 32ft plastic whale that's been touring the country. It stopped off at the Metrocentre, so Nic went to visit. It's made entirely from single use plastic - the same amount that enters the ocean EVERY SINGLE SECOND.

We prefer to think that it's because people are seeing more and more conscientious individuals regularly litter picking.... It seems that all over the country, attitudes are shifting. We're not being seen as "litter picking weirdos" anymore - it's becoming normal behaviour!

It's a shame that not everyone shares this mindset. Like the dog walker who must have ambled past all our hard workers, only to think it was appropriate to leave a fresh steaming dog poo bag for our volunteers to find! But for everyone selfish individual there are ten that stop to say thank you for the great work of our volunteers, which reminds you that it's all worthwhile!

SURVEY DATA

Two of our volunteers carried out the Marine Conservation Society Beach Watch Survey. Although they didn't collect a huge amount of trash from the survey area, they worked extremely hard to find trash wedged in the rocks. A full breakdown of the litter collected can be found here. Of the 67 items collected, the majority was found to be plastic and dropped by the public.

The rest of our volunteers carried out their "free pick" where the aim of the game is to pick up as much as they can! In total we removed 43kg of rubbish. Not bad for a clean beach!